FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April i8, 1903. 
A Perilous Ride — H. 
A Story of Indian Days, 
{Cencluttid Jrom page 283,) 
The next morning proved beautiful. The storm was 
over, the sun came out warm, with a slight south breeze, 
and the snow began to disappear rapidly. We made no 
fire, and had a scant breakfast. About lo o'clock we^ saw 
the Indians about a mile to the south making their way 
down the river, but taking good care to keep out of gun 
shot of our long range rifles. They went below the 
island about three-quarters of a mile, turned toward the 
river, crossed on the ice, saw nO' signs of our leaving 
and returned. About noon we built a small quick fire 
and made coffee, the last we had. Our flour and bread 
was gone, but we had about half a pound of salt and 
about two or three pipefuls of tobacco. We were getting 
short. Nevertheless we would be compelled to remain a 
few daj'S longer on account of snow, for the making of a 
fresh trail which from the surrounding hills could be 
seen so far would surely bring the Indians on us. 
We passed the time in shaving bark for the horses and 
lamenting our shortage of tobacco. The next day, after 
the Indians had made their third trip to see if we had left 
the island, we made up our minds that on the following 
morning we would make a break for the lower country. 
After supper, which meal consisted of buffalo straight, 
except a little salt, I took a stroll down the north river 
bank, keeping Just within the timber. After going about 
half a mile, I was amazed to see a small column of smoke 
on the island toward the lower end. I got out my glasses 
and took a long and careful survey in all directions, but 
could see nothing but the smoke. Somebody must have 
made it. but who, was the question. I waited until it got 
quite dark, got under the bank of the river on the ice, 
but hugging the bank as close as possible, and made my 
way slowly and carefully toward the smoke. When I 
had reached a good point to look over the bank, and 
not a great way from where the smoke appeared to be 
coming from, I crept to the top and cautiously peeped 
over and discovered a small, brightly btu'ning camp fire 
not over thirty steps from where I stood; but not a soul 
could be seen. 
I kept my position, not moving an inch for at least five 
minutes, and still no signs of life; when all of a sudden 
there came from near the fire one of the loudest sneezes 
I ever heard — it was easily heard by my partner up the 
river, who, mistaking it for a call, immediately started 
in the direction from which it came. I could not help 
laughing^ — but not very loud — when I heard a voice say- 
ing: "That d -d nose of yours will be the death of 
you yet. You'd jess as well fire a cannin*." T could stand 
it no longer, and hallooed out: "Hello, there, supper 
ready?" "Bet your life," came the answer. "Got any 
salt?" "Yes; you got any tobacco?" "Bet yer 
life we have." "It's a swap, then," says T, going forward 
and shaking hands with twO' of the roughest-looking men 
I ever saw. They were both dressed in buckskin, old and 
greasy, and had bands of antelope skin about five inches 
wide for hats, buffalo leggins and moccasins. They had 
some tobacco and any amount of meat, the finest I ever 
saw, but that was all. In a few minutes my partner had 
got near enough to hear us talking and came to camp. 
Having the salt with him, we divided, and lighted our 
pipes, which was worth all the grub in A.merica just then. 
We began to smoke, talk and roast buffalo. 
These two men had come from the Black Hills, 
somewhere near Dcadwood — Bill Tripp and a man by the 
name of Hammond. Tripp was a desperate man, and 
about a year afterward, single-handed, robbed the Vir- 
ginia City bank in broad daylight, escaped v/ith several 
thousand dollars, and was never captured. They treated 
u-S well, however. They had been on the island for some 
time trapping beaver, and had a fine lot of skins. We all 
stayed together this night, as they had plenty of buft'alo 
skins for bedding. 
About 10 o'clock the next morning, seeing no Indians, 
we all crossed the river, going down to the abandoited 
Fort Pease and for some distance below. The snow was 
about all gone, and a warm wind blew from the south. 
On returning to the old fort we were startled by the most 
dismal sound one ever heard. What on earth could it 
be? Not Indians; it sounded to me as if the whole earth 
was going to pieces. Tripp spoke up and said : "Run for 
the island, the river is breaking up." As I ran I looked, ■ 
and such a sight I never saw before. The whole bed- of 
ice the full width of the river seemed to rise up and then 
fall to pieces with the most terrific noise one could im- 
agine. On it came, and we must get on the island if 
possible. When about one hundred yards from the lower 
end, I saw our horses on the ice and very badly fright- 
ened. The mule was not there. When the ice suddenly 
left the island, away went my pony and Lowery's horse 
on a cake of ice. A moment later here came the mule ' 
with the picket rope on, and, plunging into the water, 
she followed the other horses. Now we were in a fix — 
200 miles from the Cantonment and a-foot. On went the 
horses, still on the ice, and the mule close behind in the 
water. We followed on down the bank of the river, 
keeping opposite the horses. Below the old fort the river 
makes a bend, and the ice began to jam, and the cake of 
ice that the horses were on stopped almost in the center 
of the stream. As quick as thought Tripp ran on lo 
floating ice, gave the two horses a slap, and the ice being 
jammed so tight, they came to land safe and sound, but 
the poor mule could not be seen from the shore. Tripp, 
however, saw the end of her nose between two cakes of 
ice; he caught her by the nostrils, shut her wind off and 
she came to the top, He at once seized the rope and 
started for shore, when we all four of us got hold and 
pulled her over. She was badly cut by the ice in places, 
but was all right otherwise. We did not give three 
cheers, but we felt like it. Not over five minutes later the 
jam went out, and on went the ice. We took the animals 
into one of the old fort rooms and we occupied another 
and remained all night without bed or supper. 
Early next morning, the river being much lower aild 
free from ice, we took the horses and went to the point 
jieaj-e^t |o the island and swam them over^ three of us 
going with them; Tripp swam back v ith two of the 
horses and brought Hammi ^ • over. N' - were safe. 
We built a good fire and to n meat, and 
pretty soon were quite comf. ile. 
I was now quite anxious to i on ; S' next morn- 
ing we packed our mule, sadaiei'. our h- i^, bade our 
two friends good-by, and were off for ' mgue River. 
The breaking up of the river was very muC. , in our favor, 
not but the Indians could and would cross, but they 
could not do it so quickly. We made a good day's ride, 
saw no Indians, but plenty of fresh signs. We kept as 
much in the timber as possible. When night came on 
we camped just before reaching a deep, wide, dry coulee. 
The next morning it was brim full of water and mush 
snow which had been washed down from the mountains 
during the night. We traveled up the stream for about 
a mile to a place where it looked as if we might cross. 
Lowery took the lead, as he had the largest horse. The 
stream was spread out so that it looked like a great river, 
but seemed not over knee deep, and continued about that 
depth until within a few feet of the opposite side, when 
out of sight went old man L wery, horse and all. The 
next instant he was up, ani within a few feet of the 
bank, which he easily reached. Not wanting any of that, 
I turned back, went down to the river, unpacked and un- 
saddled, took the mule and horse back to where Lowery 
had crossed, started them in, and away they went. They 
got a good ducking, but crossed all right. I got three 
small logs down at the river, lashed them together with 
my picket ropes, put my saddles and other things on the 
raft, and away I went, intending to raft across tlie mouth 
of the water-filled ravine. I was getting along finely 
until I got pretty close to the mouth of the incoming 
stream, when I discovered that it was coming with such 
force as to almost cut the river, and looked to me to be 
at least three feet higher than the river. I tried to stop 
my raft and get off, but I kept getting further from shore. 
When I saw I was in for it, I threw my steering pole 
away, laid down flat on the raft and let her slide. I struck 
the incoming stream and began to whirl round and round 
until I was almost at the opposite side of the river, where 
I came within an ace of being knocked off by an old root 
of a tree that projected out from the bank. I kept spin- 
ning round and round, landing back on the side of the 
river I had entered, and exactly where I wanted to be. 
As soon as I got near enough I got my rope in one hand 
and rifle in the other and jumped ashore, on what seemed 
to be a beautiful black sand bank, which I had no sooner 
touched with my feet than down, down, down I went, 
not touching solid bottom until the sand was up under 
my arms, and then I was held as tight as in a vise, and 
it was getting tighter. I gave a yell for my partner, who 
scon came and looked over the high bank. He threw me 
a rope, and finally I worked out, and with much labor 
and difificultir got my things ashore. I was in a terrible 
fix, wet and muddy, sore and hungry and disgusted with 
the whole country, and wished myself back in old Ken- 
tucky. We made camp, which consisted of a fire and a 
good smoke, but we had nothing to eat that night. Still 
I slept well. 
Next morning we were off early. About 9 o'clock we 
found a dead buffalo that someone had killed for amuse- 
ment some time before. For all we knew, it might have 
lain there half the winter. It was frozen. We hacked 
out a chunk with our hatchet and ate it raw as we rode 
along. Don't laugh when I say it was good. It was 
good, and I enjoyed it very much; and to this day 
nothing so disgusts me as to hear some one say, when 
they are surrounded by almost everything in the way of 
grub, "Oh, dear, what shall I get to eat? This is a time 
of year when there is nothing." Such talk as that always 
makes me sick, since my trip to Tongue River Canton- 
ment, when bread would have been a luxury. 
About noontime we were at the mouth of Froze-to- 
Death Creek, which had broken up, and the ice from the 
river had jammed up in its mouth and stopped the ice 
from going out of the creek. I crossed over on the ice 
on foot. It seemed solid, I hacked a little trail over 
with my hatchet, and we started to cross with our horses, 
Lowery in the lead ; when about half way across, his 
horse stepped on a large flat piece of ice, when it began 
to tip; I being behind, gave him a slap, the ice tipped 
more and the horse slipped down into the hole. It was 
something strange; the ice was piled up several feet deep, 
but in this one spot there was no ice under the top piece. 
Ii looked ju.st like a well. Lowery held on to the bridle, 
or the horse would have gone below. We tied a rope 
around his neck and to a tree on the bank, and went to 
work to cut a trail through the ice to the bank, which 
was a tedious job with hatchets. On either side of the 
stream the bluffs were quite high, and being now in the 
very worst part of the country for Indians, we were in 
danger of having them get right on top of us before we 
knew it. Every few minutes we would have to stop 
work and go to the top of the bluff and take a look. I 
concluded to tie my mule up on the bluff, behind a thick 
patch of pines, and then watch the mule and save running 
SQ. often. On account of the thick pines, the mule could 
not be seen by anyone except us. We went to work now 
in earnest, but in a few moments I looked up at the mule 
and there she stood, with ears straight forward as if she 
might be looking at the devil. We dropped our hatchets, 
grabbed our guns and made for the top of the bluff, 
v^here not a single thing was to be seen. We soon went 
back to work, and a few moments afterward had to go 
through the same performance, and with the same re- 
sults. So we dropped our attention from the mule. 
About 6 o'clock we had our trail ready to get our poor 
tired horse out of the hole, where he had been hanging 
by the neck all evening. He got out all right and was 
walking up the bank when he stopped to shake himself, 
like a dog coming out of the water, and immediately after 
doing so, dropped dead. We took the saddle off, neither 
of us saying a word. I took the mule and pony across, 
got down under the bank and sat down and smoked. 
While smoking we heard someone talking. We could 
hardly believe our ears. I \yas so hungry and weak that 
I thought I must be dreaming, Lowery had also heard 
the talking, and on looking over the bank, we sa\v two 
men rolling something on the ground. 
"What the devil are they doing?'' said l,owery, 
"It looks like a barrel tQ me,'' said \. 
We went down toward them in full yiew, an(J h^cl 
come to within thirty fept of them befoi^e they, sav^ us. 
When thfy did so, both made for the timber^ but stopped 
as soon as they knew we were white men. Sure enough, 
what they were rolling was a barrel of beer th.at had been 
lost with a boat late the fall before and had lodged on the 
sandbar and was frozen. They rolled it down to their 
dugout, where they were trapping beaver, and soon had 
the staves off and a solid barrel of ice, except about a 
gallon or two in the center which was what they were 
?.fter, and soon had it. I would not touch it until I had 
had something to eat, which was very quick. I then took 
a sup of the beer. It was strong as alcohol, but did me 
lot.s of good ; at least .1 thought so. The two men were 
soon as drunk as drunk could be, and ready to fight all 
the Indians in Montana. They were all right nejct morn- 
ing, but wanted no more beer. 
We remained in the dugout all next day, resting and 
eating, I thought I never would get filled up. On the 
following morning we made another start and were told 
wc could make the Cantonment in two days if we had no 
trouble. As Lowery had lost his horse, we were now 
compelled to abandon our pack saddle and most of our 
bedding and considerable other stuff, so that he could 
ride my mide. We cached our things in a safe place in 
the timber, each t.iking an extra blanket under the sad- 
dle, and what we could tie on behind, taking care not to 
overload our animals. 
We took some bread and cold boiled buffalo, and at 
daylight were off, keeping in the timber, which made the 
traveling much slower. It was cooler and cloudy, and 
what should it do in the afternoon but begin to snow 
again. Snow was what we wanted now more than ever, 
it would check the Indians from moving around, and be- 
side would cover our trail, which could now plainly be 
seen in the soft ground whenever we went outside of the 
timber, which we were compelled to do every Httle while 
in crossing open spots. It continued to snow fast until 
after we had made our night camp in a patch of cotton- 
v/ood timber, when the timber belt on our side of the 
river gave out, leaving a space of three or four miles to 
the next belt. We made camp about the middle of the 
timber, when we discovered we were on a sort of an 
island, the timber being almost surrounded by a slough, 
v/hich was still frozen over and quite wide, connecting 
with the river below, leaving a narrow space dt the upper 
end of solid ground, where we had entered the timber. 
We shaved bark for the horses, ate a cold snack and 
made our bed on the snow, which was -now about six 
inches deep, but had ceased to fall. 
Next morning we were up early, intending to sleep at 
the Cantonment that night. I went out to shave a little 
bark, when I thought I heard a horse snort. So did 
Lowery, who came to where I was to see if I had heard 
it. AVe slowly and carefully walked through the heavy 
timber. The small undergrowth was heavily laden with 
snow, making it difficult to see any great distance and 
the timber getting thicker with willows as we got nearer 
the lower end. Suddenly we ran on to fresh shod horse 
tracks and a moccasin track of a white man- — the big toe 
turning back instead of in. We followed the trail a few 
yards, when we heard two men talking. After listening 
a few minutes, I recognized the voice of one of them as 
being the notorious "Yankee Jim,", who is at this time 
the sage of the Yellowstone Canyon a few miles north of 
the Yellowstone Park. I was well acquainted with him, 
and had assisted him to some extent in making his toll 
road through "Yankee Jim" Canyon toward what is now 
the National Park. We boldly went forward, making 
noise enough so as not to surprise them. You may rest 
assured that we were gladly received. The other man 
was Muggins Taylor, who had been one of Custer's main 
scouts, and was with Reno, at the Custer battle. 
He and "Yankee Jim" had been at this point all winter 
trapping beaver and drying elk and buffalo meat, of which 
they had several thousand pounds. They had a lodge 
made of poles about six inches in diameter and about 
twenty or twenty-five feet long, placed in a large circle, 
standing on end and meeting in a small circle at the 
top. It was covered with raw elk skins, hair side down, 
and heaped up from the ground to a height of five feet, 
was from 2^4 to 3 feet deep of earth, with port holes 
in every direction. The remainder of the covering was 
of skins alone. After talking until quite late, we all 
went to sleep on a big bed of tanned buffalo robes. The 
next morning my eyes were paining me dreadfully, feel- 
ing as if sand had got in them, and I soon found I was 
snow blind. Pretty soon I could not open them at all, 
and as far as Indians were concerned, if I had to depend 
on myself, I was completely at their mercy should they 
find us. "Yankee Jim" went to work doctoring me. He 
took a large boulder which he had brought from the river 
bank, heated it almost red hot, then bringing me a bucket 
of cold water told me to sit on the ground with the hot 
stone in front of me. He covered me over with a large 
b)iffalo robe, and directed me to hold my head over the 
stone and sprinkle cold water on it, and let the steam 
go in my eyes. This I did and in a very few moments got 
much better, and by night was very nearly cured. 
The next day was beautiful and warm, and as we had 
lost the day with my eyes, we concluded to make the ride 
to the Cantonment at night, as we were told the Indians 
were watching the actions of Gen. Miles from ever}' 
direction, and a night ride would be much safer, and, in 
fact, the only way we could get there. We bade our 
friends good-by and started about 8 o'clock at night, and 
instead of keeping the river and timber, we took to the 
bluffs about a mile from the river, keeping under the 
bluffs as much as possible, and made good headway. 
When daylight appeared we found we were about one 
mile above the Cantonment, which was on the opposite 
side of the river from us. W^e rode down to the river, 
near tjie mouth of Tongue River and close to the camp 
of Gen. Miles, when we were halted and asked who we 
were. I told the guard I had dispatches from General 
Brisbin at Fort Ellis to General Miles, which being re- 
ported to General Miles, a boat was sent over after us, 
and a few minutes more I was in the presence of 
General Miles, and delivered my dispatch, forty-one days 
old, but none had been ahead of me from that direction. 
That route had been abandoned for some time as not 
possible to be traveled at this season of the year, and all 
news from Fort Ellis or the East had come by way of 
the Missouri River and Fort Buford, 
What always was a mystery to me was this : I was 
&hown a copy of the New York Sun — T believe it was — 
giving an account of my running on the ice down th& 
Yellowstone Canyon, and being killed and scalped 
